USING MOSFETs AS SWITCHES

A Comprehensive note on safe operation of MOSFETS

By Athar Rasul 14th March, 2012

MOSFETs are Transconductance devices - which is a fancy way of saying that a voltage on the input (Gate-Source) causes a current to flow on the output (Drain-Source). They have very high input impedance in the 10s of mega ohms which is very desirable. The high input impedance means that there is very little power required to turn a MOSFET on. General Notes Enhanced MOSFETs when ON, allow current in either direction with an essentially identical RDS(ON). When OFF, they block current in one direction. MOSFETs have a threshold voltage that must be reached in order to turn them on. It is called VGS(TH). Gate Resistor Unfortunately, the high input impedance causes static problems and other handling problems. If the Gate is left open (no connection), the MOSFET can self-destruct. The Gate is a very high impedance device and noise can trigger the MOSFET. A pull-down resistor connecting Gate to Source should be added (100K to 1M is generally ok) to stop the MOSFET from self-destructing. It is very important to install this resistor BEFORE installing the MOSFETs. You will find that after this resistor is installed, the MOSFETs are quite stable devices. The resistor pulls-down the Gate and turns off the MOSFETs, not to mention, adds some static protection. Using a low value resistor between the MOSFET driver and the MOSFET gate terminal dampens down any ringing oscillations caused by the lead inductance and gate capacitance which can otherwise exceed the maximum voltage allowed on the gate terminal. It also slows down the rate at which the MOSFET turns on and off. If you are driving a MOSFET from a bouncy, possibly noisy, line (for instance relay contacts), you should use a small series gate resistor close to the MOSFET, to suppress VHF oscillation. 22 ohms is plenty, you can use less. For high current MOSFETs, the Gate Channel Capacitance can be very high and a rapidly changing drain voltage can produce milliamps of transient Gate current. This could be enough to overdrive and even damage delicate CMOS driver chips. Having a series resistor is a compromise between speed and protection, with values of 100R to 10K being typical. It is a good idea to use gate series resistors of 1K to 10K. This is especially important if the Gate signal comes from another circuit board.

Gate Noise Rejection If MOSFETs are used as switch for motors, you may want to add a capacitor in parallel with the pull-down resistor to minimize the effect of noise and slow the turn ON time of MOSFET. The problem with doing so is that if MOSFET takes too much time to turn on, it may burn. So instead of slowing gate rise time to mute noise, run the output of MOSFET through some inductors in the 40uH to 100uH range (depending on load). Place the inductors in series with the motor, as close to the FETs as possible. This is quite useful, and it keeps the FETs cool. Basic MOSFET Selection Rules / Checks The Drain to Source max voltage rating (VDS,max) determines the maximum voltage you can switch. The Gate threshold voltage (VGS) determines the voltage difference you need to apply to the gate to make the MOSFETs conduct. The Gate to Source max voltage (VGS,max) is a critical factor that must not be exceeded (even for a few nS) or the MOSFET will be destroyed. Will the power rails spike? If so provide protection of some sort (e.g. transient suppressor) or select a device with a higher rating. When switching high voltage rails (e.g. 24V from low voltage logic you can often meet this requirement using a potential divider to provide the MOSFET with a gate voltage above 0V). Do you need to use a MOSFET driver IC? If the MOSFET has a high Gate switching current (e.g. high current MOSFETs) or will be switched fast (to ensure that the MOSFET operates efficiently with minimal power dissipation) then this may be necessary. Often MOSFETs require a 12A drive to achieve switching efficiently at frequencies of hundreds of kHz. This drive is required on a pulsed basis to quickly charge and discharge the MOSFET gate capacitances. Paralleling MOSFETs MOSFETs may be placed in parallel to improve the current handling capability. Simply join the Gate, Source and Drain terminals together. Any number of MOSFETs can be paralleled up, but note that the gate capacitance adds up as you parallel more MOSFETs, and eventually the MOSFET driver will not be able to drive them.

Why MOSFETs Fail?

1. Insufficient gate drive MOSFET devices are only capable of switching large amounts of power because they are designed to dissipate minimal power when they are turned on. You must ensure that the

MOSFET is turned hard ON. If the device is not fully turned on and far from saturation then the device will have a high conduction resistance and will dissipate considerable power as heat. 2. Over-Voltage Exceed a MOSFETs voltage rating for just a few nS and you can destroy it. Select MOSFET devices conservatively for the anticipated voltage levels and ensure you allow for or deal with suppressing any voltage spikes or ringing. 3. Peek current overload Overload currents for a short duration can cause progressive damage to a MOSFET often with little noticeable temperature rise prior to failure. MOSFETS often quote high peek current rating but these are typically only for peek currents of a few 100 S. If switching inductive load ensure you overrate the MOSFET to handle peek currents. 4. Prolonged current overload If a MOSFET is passing a high current then its on state resistance will cause it to heat up. If the heat sinking is poor then the MOSFET can be destroyed by excessive temperature. A solution to this can be to parallel multiple MOSFETs to share high load currents between them. 5. No free-wheel current path When switching inductive loads, there must be a path for back EMF to freewheel when the MOSFET switches off. Free-wheeling path must be provided across the load as well as the MOSFET. Enhancement mode MOSFETs incorporate a diode that provides this protection. A similar diode and/or Snubber circuit can be provided across the load to have a better voltage suppression in back EMF condition. 6. H or Full Bridge Configuration Shoot-through / Cross conduction When using P and N MOSFETS between voltage rails to provide an H or L output voltage, if the control signals to the MOSFETs overlap then they will effectively short circuit the supply and this is known as a shoot-through condition. When this happens, any supply decoupling

capacitors are discharged rapidly through both devices every time a switching transition occurs resulting in very short but large current pulses. To avoid this a dead time must be allowed between switching transitions, during which neither MOSFET is ON. 7. Slow reverse recovery of MOSFET body diode High Q resonant circuits are capable of storing considerable energy in their inductance and selfcapacitance. Under certain tuning conditions, this causes the current to free-wheel through the internal body diodes of the MOSFET devices as one MOSFET turns off and the other device turns on. A problem rises due to the slow turn-off (or reverse recovery) of the internal body diode when the opposing MOSFET tries to turn on. MOSFET body diodes generally have a long reverse recovery time compared to the performance of the MOSFET itself. If the body diode of one MOSFET is conducting when the opposing device is switched on, then a short circuit occurs similar to the shoot-through condition described above. You can solve his problem by adding a Schottky diode connected in series with the MOSFET source (prevents the MOSFET body diode from ever being forward biased by the free-wheeling current) and a high speed (fast recovery) diode connected in parallel to the MOSFET/Schottky pair so that the free-wheeling current bypasses the MOSFET and Schottky completely. This ensures that the MOSFET body diode is never driven into conduction. The free-wheel current is handled by the fast recovery diodes which present less of a shoot through problem. 8. Excessive gate drive If the MOSFET gate is driven with too high a voltage the gate oxide insulation can be punctured effectively destroying the MOSFET. Ensure that the gate drive signal is free from any narrow voltage spikes that could exceed the maximum allowable gate voltage. 9. Slow switching transitions Little energy is dissipated during the steady on and off states, but considerable energy is dissipated during the times of a transition. Therefore it is desirable to switch between states as quickly as possible to minimize power dissipation during switching. Since the MOSFET gate appears capacitive, it requires considerable current pulses in order to charge and discharge the gate in a few tens of nano-seconds. Peak gate currents can be as high as an amp. 10. Spurious oscillation MOSFET inputs are relatively high impedance, which can lead to stability problems. Under certain conditions high voltage MOSFET devices can oscillate at very high frequencies due to stray inductance and capacitance in the surrounding circuit. (Frequencies usually in the low

MHz.) A low impedance Gate-drive circuit should also be used to prevent stray signals from coupling to the gate of the device. 11. Conducted interference with controller Rapid switching of large currents can cause voltage dips and transient spikes on the power supply rails which may interference with the control circuitry. Good decoupling and star-point grounding techniques should be used.

High Side and Low Side Switching

All the circuits are feasible when correctly driven, but 2 & 3 are far more common, far easier to drive well and far safer.

Topology # 3 is the most practical N-channel scheme. The source is at a fixed voltage with respect to ground, which means you can provide a fixed gate-source voltage to control it. The MOSFET will be ON anywhere from +2.5 to +12V above ground, depending on the device. When would you ever not use this topology? The only major reason to do so is if you have a load that needs to have one terminal tied to circuit ground, for electrical safety or to minimize electromagnetic radiation/susceptibility. Some motors/fans/pumps/heaters/etc. must do this, in which case you are forced to use the high-side topology # 1 or # 2. Topology # 1 is tricky. When the MOSFET is off, the source is somewhat of a floating node (imagine a resistor divider with the top resistor enormous) sitting somewhere close to zero. When the MOSFET is on, the source will be very close to 400V assuming saturation. A moving source means that the gate-to-ground control voltage would have to move as well to keep the MOSFET on. An N-channel high-side switch has better performance than a comparably sized/priced Pchannel high-side switch, but the gate drive is more complicated, and has to be relative to the N-channel MOSFET source terminal, which varies as the circuit switches, but there are specialized gate drive ICs which are meant to drive high-side N-channel MOSFETS. High-voltage or high-power applications generally use this topology. Topology # 2 is straightforward like topology # 3. If the control voltage is referenced to ground, proving 397.5V to 388V from gate to ground (-2.5 to -12V from gate to source) will turn the MOSFET ON. The source is fixed (always at +400V) so controlling the gate means a fixed voltage is all you need. (Unless your 400V bus collapses, but that's another issue). A P-channel high-side switch has worse performance than a comparably sized/priced N-channel high-side switch (mainly because of its higher RDS(ON)), but the gate drive is simple: connect gate to the positive rail ("+400V" in above fig) to turn it off, and connect gate to a voltage that is 510V below the positive rail to turn it on. At low supply voltages (5-15V), you can essentially just connect the gate to ground to turn the MOSFET on. At higher voltages (15-50V), you can often create a bias supply with a resistor and a zener diode. Above 50V, or if the switch has to switch ON fast, this gets impractical and this topology is less often used. Topology # 4, like topology # 1, is tricky. When the MOSFET is off, the source sits near 400V. When it is on, it will fall to near zero. A variable source means a variable gate supply with respect to ground, which is again a messy proposition. The low-side P-channel switch has the worst of all worlds (worse device performance, complex gate drive circuit) and is essentially never used.